Designed by Chance: Headboard: Step One

I'm determined to make my own headboard. I have been thinking about it since we bought the guest bed. You see, because of the configuration of the room in our Cape house we had to buy a very low bed, and the only way to get to both sides of it I had to put it at an angle. So to solve this, I wanted to make a headboard.

Finding the style I wanted was hard. I had to find something that was low on the sides but high at the top. That way the headboard would have weight if pulled away from the sloped wall, but could be tucked into the corner if we need more floor space.

I found this picture:

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I love the shape and I hope my father-in-law will be able to cut it out.

The plan is to make a stencil of the shape, give it to the father-in-law and he will cut out the shape from ply-wood. So I set out to make the stencil.

I have to warn you this took some math. I surprise myself sometimes with my ability to do math, it seems to be kind of instinctual (I guess, and I get it right, or close, most of the time). I know this is not the way normal people do math, but it works for me. Now, just in case I didn't get this right I had my husband, who is a math teacher, to sit with me while I was doing it. In the end the only time I needed help was with some simple division. Not bad.

This is the room (and bed) that will get the new headboard. I really have not spent any effort on this room, it is my newest project as far as the design. I have a lot of plans.

I gathered my suplies:

To get the headboard to fit in the tight spot I measured it against the wall with the bed.

I just taped the paper straight to the wall.

For the math and actual drawing I had to put it on the floor.

In order to get the half circles right I used an improvised compass ... a pencil, a thumb tack, and a string.

I measured the circles and the space between the two sides, and then made my lines.

(It took me forever, and a yoga class, to decide where to put the horizontal line between the two curves. It was tough!) If you look close you can see the other line I was thinking of.

To get the two sides exactly the same I folded the first side over and cut out the design.

I think it came out really well. Now we just have to see how it looks cut out of wood.

And just because she tried so hard, I have to give you a shot of my kitty with the new head board to be.